This Air
by deadcell
Summary: Takes place immediately after Setzer brings Celes up to the Blackjack from the opera house. Implied Celes/Setzer; sensual situation with sort-of-dubious consent.


**This Air**

Celes is thankful to finally be back on solid ground-if the entry ramp to the ship's cargo bay could even be called as such—though she says nothing to indicate her previous fear. She tries with every muscle in her body to halt her trembling; finds it impossible. She knows that below her there is nothing but air; that a few steps down the ramp will lead her to the edge of a void, the opera house a toy arena below her, her companions now dots of indeterminate color. The wind up this high is violent and her stomach flips with the notion that perhaps she may blow right back off, down the ramp and into air. But she can't go anywhere; Setzer's grip on her arm is immovable and her back is against the wall, the entry hatch shut a few feet away from them.

"So," Setzer says, bringing his face inches from hers in order to be heard over the wind. "What a delightful con artist. Tell me your name." He smiles at her and she can smell a faint wisp of whiskey on his breath.

"Bring my friends up here," Celes commands flatly, and the words tumble from her mouth like a cluster of dry leaves. "Are you _drunk_?"

"Not any more than usual," he smiles, and shifts closer. She becomes aware of his heat as he continues, questioning her.

"Why bring _them_?" he asks, the words bare and non-rhetorical.

"We need to discuss some business."

Setzer holds her firmly, his hand on her arm like a tourniquet, and he places his other against the wall besides her head. She looks up at his face, and he watches her eyes as they travel along the smooth fault lines of his scars. Past him, she can see nothing but an open void of sky.

"You're trembling," he says. "Do I frighten you?" The corners of his pale lips twitch in a smirk.

"Men like you don't frighten me," Celes responds flatly.

Setzer laughs a little in his throat. His hair is whipping in the breeze; Celes notes that it's almost as long as hers and as it brushes her face and bare shoulders her heart throbs a heavy beat at the _softness_, how it smells almost like clean grass, reminding her of the comforting gravity of earth. How it is _on_ her, all feather-light silver, pooling against her arms and breasts. She feels her pulse throb beneath the soft place where his hand grips her upper arm, pressing her firmly against the wind-chilled steel of the outer bay wall.

"Of course not," Setzer says. He smiles at her and his free hand moves from the wall. Celes does not flinch as he touches her face, but her chest jerks with a sharp breath as he cups her cheek in his hand and runs his thumb gently over her lower lip. His palm is soft and warm and his touch seems to sear her with a fiery shiver, his heat replacing the chill where the wind had burned her face. She feels the vibration roll through her body with the rise of adrenaline and she can smell him, all tobacco smoke and clean leather, the scent causing something dormant to vibrate in her center.

He rubs her lip gently, as if coaxing her to open her mouth. For a moment Celes considers and imagines his finger against her tongue, but the thought is replaced by revulsion, something she questions as fear.

"Of course I don't scare you," he repeats. "On the contrary. I'm the type of man who _arouses you_, no?"

Celes tries to slow her breathing, and does not answer.

"Don't I?"

Celes waits until his thumb slides down to her chin before she opens her mouth to speak. "I'm afraid of heights," she says firmly, like a stone.

"_Really_," he says in a quiet rasp, in a way that tells Celes her fear excites him. She feels a surge of terror at the notion that he might _make her look down_, and she stiffens.

Setzer laughs a quiet laugh and slides his hand down the side of her neck, then drags a finger along her collarbone, his eyes following the path he traces down her sternum, stopping just before he reaches the skin between her breasts, her skin there now damp with a nervous sweat. Celes feels an almost painful tension beginning to knot between her legs; she is uncomfortably wet there in a way she can't remember feeling before.

"But how can you say that," Setzer asks, "when you've no idea how _beautiful_ it all is up here?" His eyes move back up to hers, and they are silver like his hair, their criminal lustfulness gone for a moment, replaced with a kind of quiet wonder. Something about the way he says this makes Celes feel as if she hears a different man, a voice speaking somewhere beyond the lascivious brute in front of her. She still feels violated, uneasy and tense after his touches; yet at the same time exhilarated, _alive_ almost, knowing he'd be easily destroyed with the magic he's unaware she possesses.

In a guilt-ridden corner of her brain she thinks _Locke has never touched me like this, not yet_ and the thought knots her stomach with a tension almost as unbearable as the one between her legs.

Celes watches Setzer's mouth as he speaks; imagines how hot and wet his tongue would be against hers. Every second is compulsive sickness, a slew of thoughts she can't stop but knows she _doesn't want_. The part that most infuriates her is that he seems to be reading her mind somehow; though she is certain her body language is not betraying her.

"I don't care how beautiful it is," she says coldly. "I hate it. Now, must I ask you again—"

"Yeah, lady, I know," he says, not unkindly. "But must I bring your man?"

"What?"

"Bandana guy."

"What makes you think…" Celes begins, and then shuts her mouth, exhaling sharply through her nose.

Setzer's laugh fades into a slight smile, licking his lips as his eyes move down to her breasts and back up to pause on her lips before meeting her eyes again. "Okay," he says, "I'll send my crew down."

"My name is Celes," she says, finding no clear reason but releasing the words as if they had been trapped behind a steel gate for years. For a few moments he stares into her eyes and she blinks uncontrollably, a sudden harsh wall of wind finally causing them to dry to the point of tearing. He gently wipes away the water from her cheeks with his fingers, releasing his grip on her arm. She flattens herself against the wall, her hands groping flat steel, suddenly terrified with nothing holding her in place.

"You won't fall," Setzer says. "Ship's not even moving."

"It's the wind."

"Come on," he says, and takes her hand. Gingerly she steps, making sure to stare at the wall and not _out down that ramp_. She follows him, wishing for all intents and purposes that he were still _on_ her, holding her, his body blocking her view of that wide-open terror. But her pride does not allow her this admission and she tries to move as confidently as possible, her _damned preposterous_ wide-skirted Maria costume catching the wind and making her feel precariously off-balance.

Later that night, after all is said and done and Setzer has pledged to become their ally, when all of them have settled aboard the Blackjack to compare notes about this strange tangent to their travels, Locke speaks to Celes. And as he talks she tries to focus on his words, tries to comprehend beyond the simple sounds, distracted by the thought of nothing more than Setzer's fingers on her mouth.


End file.
